Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Lady experienced bad service from staff at Cotton On Tampines, wrote a letter to Cotton On (did not get a reply) and below is the extract of what happened, as she has wrote in the letter.

"The first issue I had was
with the curtains of the changing room. The curtains could not close properly
and the people outside could see me changing.

I asked
my boyfriend to help me hold the curtains while I changed. However, one of your
male staff insisted my boyfriend stand outside the changing room area.

However, your male staff could freely walk in and out of the changing
room area. Then who is he to ask my boyfriend (who I trust 100 times more) to
get out?

My boyfriend explained the reason why he wanted to stay
and help me hold the curtain, but your staff just told him in an arrogant tone, “there are other females in the
changing room.” It was very humiliating for my boyfriend.

On a second occasion, after about 2 weeks from the first
occasion, I visited the store with my sister when there was not many people in the store. I picked 4 clothings
and my sister picked 1 and we went to the changing room area. There was a
female staff tending the area and she rudely said, “Three pieces only”.

She was
so rude, it seemed as if she can’t be bothered to even give me a proper answer.
Then when my sister asked if we could share a room, she just said, “NO”. Do
your staff know to apologise?

In addition to the rude responses, the staff don’t seem to
be trained in saying the word “Excuse me”. They bumped into me at least twice
by different people while I was standing at the entrance of the dressing room
area."

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Sorry i haven't been updating this blog much despite some of you very kindly emailed me your good/ bad experiences with the service industry. I'd like to remind that i'd only put up information from original source (you blogged about it/ did a Facebook post about it/ tweeted about it etc).

This is so that i have a source to quote from and an identity for people to link this incident to. If i just post it up with no source it'd be as if it's my own experience. So thanks for the understanding if i can't put up your emails to me over the many months since this blog has started!

However, i'd still be more than glad to share your GOOD/ BAD experience with the service industry if you shared it on a blog/ on a public facebook update/ tweeted about it! Email me the link at qiutinger@gmail.com if you'd like to share it here! ^.^

Anyway this is a brand new post just for The White Rabbit @ Dempsey!

I'd like to thank their group manager Betty and manager Amos, for the help they rendered Josh (my bf, now fiance) for our proposal and dinner after.

I've read through their email exchange after the surprise proposal, and i could tell they were really happy for us and excited to have us there! Thank you!

And after the event, they also kept in touch to ensure we enjoyed that evening and asked for feedback to see how they can do better.

We don't have an answer to how they can do any better for now becox we are both still very grateful they helped out in the whole proposal! Amos especially was really "into it" and got into his role really well haha! Thank you!

Also, we'd like to thank them for preparing a super fulfilling and yummy dinner for us and our guests! The food was really great =) Thank you!

And me and Josh both really appreciate that you guys were so willing to help plan this even though it was quite last minute!

Thank you again, White Rabbit! We'd definitely make our way back soon with our friends and family!

The restaurant Josh (my bf, now fiance) previously decided on for the proposal was The House (Dempsey House).

He
made a reservation for 12 over email and asked the person to give him a
call for details as it's gonna be a event. Nobody called him thou they
did confirm the reservation.

Then few days later he
went down with his friend to have a meal and to check out the place
again. He been there before with his other friends and saw a green house
thingy at their outdoor area. And thought it'd be a nice place for the proposal to happen.

But on the day he was there again, he
asked to book the green house for the reservation he had made. He
explained the whole "proposal thing going on" to the lady and she say
for that, he'd have to call this person name J. So she gave him the
card. And then another staff in the restaurant called out "J!" to a guy and so
Josh assume that is the guy he's
supposed to speak to.

The lady say yes, that is J, and so Josh ask if she could
get J to come over for a second. She went to call for him, came back and
say "Sorry J's busy now, maybe later" Okay, fair
enough. Thou Josh say he really really don't look busy and was just
standing around, holding the menu up, browsing it and then put it back
and then just stand around do nothing.

So when Josh is
done with his meal he ask if he could speak to J again since J is just
standing around. And the lady went to check with J, and she and come
back and say J is not free today, if Josh want to talk, he gotta email
J.

WHAT THE FUCK J.
WHAT THE FUCK. YOU CANNOT WALK A FEW STEPS TO TALK TO MY BF WHEN YOU'RE
ON THE OPERATION FLOOR DOING NOTHING?!?!?!

And the
lady told Josh that on Saturday, there is an event in the afternoon at
2pm. So they cannot promise the green house. And that they'd only know
if it's gonna be available in the evening on Saturday evening itself. So
Josh ask if he can book it, so the guest at 2pm will just have to leave
by 6pm plus, for our dinner at 7pm, cox it's for a proposal, he can't do last minute.

The lady say only J
can decide. But J is unwilling to talk to him. So Josh left his
business card and say he expect someone to call him bytomorrow noon. If not, they can cancel his reservation.

And at 4pm plus
(buggers at The House don't understand what is BY noon =.=") the next day,
someone from The House called and say they can only confirm if the
green house will be available on Saturday evening itself and then Josh
ask if there really is no way to work around it and the guy say nope, and
Josh say it's okay then, he'd bring his proposal else where. The guy
ask "But you still have a reservation for 12 that evening" Josh say "You
can cancel that for me" The guy say "Okay then"AND HE HANG UP ON MY BF.

Uh-uh, you didn't!!! YOU DO NOT~ *ghetto head + finger swag* Lolol.

Now my proposal has you being a part of it and i am very
generous with my words be it for good or for bad things so YOU WISH YOU DID NOT
HANG UP ON MY HUSBAND-TO-BE (lol).

What you should have
said was "Sorry about this. Thank you for your understanding. We hope
to serve you next time. Thank you. Thank you. Bye"

NOT FREAKING "OKAY THEN" and HANG UP ON YOUR CUSTOMER!!!

YOU
(the fella on the phone) and J, both have to do some reflections on
your service standard, please. Go face the wall. Pull your ears And reflect upon your poor service standard.

If
you're so unwilling to help people for their special event, don't put
up on your facebook page asking people to have their "Perfect dream
wedding at The House" *rolleyes*

With people like J
there, refusing to talk with their customers, and acting busy when
obviously not, and some rude guy handling their calls, i'm sure everyone
would love to hold their special events there ^.^ PLEASE PEOPLE, HOLD
ALL YOUR EVENTS THERE, it'd be memorable, i'm sure!

J will not speak to you even when he's on the floor, and then he'd
constantly avoid eye contact with you cox he knows you wanna speak to
him, and then they will ignore all your request for special arrangement
and then a rude staff will call you and STILL decide not to give you the
assistant you need and then he'd finally hang up on you ^.^ It'd be
perfect and unbelievable!

Since then someone has left a comment on The House Facebook page and Sophie shared the bad experience she had with The House too.

Fingers crossed people at The House will really look into it, and hopefully that will make a difference to the attitude their front line staff, manager and back-end staff have on SERVICE.

Update:

Read from bottom up. The staff at The House called their customer "bunch of bitches" and "fucking noisy" Well done, The House! =) There are many others replying me on Twitter about their unpleasant experiences at The House. It just hurts me, why a good place that serves good food, cannot serve people with good attitude. I sincerely wish they would do something and be better.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Went out with Mich and Zhen the other day to pass them their Xmas presents and for dinner =D

We went to Fish n Co at Bugis Junction AND IT'S THE BEST CHOICE WE EVER MADE (for that evening at least haha).

First, we get greeted sincerely and warmly by a few of the staffs who are near us. And it's not just patronizing kind of greeting. It's the "Enthusiastically welcome you to join us this evening and let us serve you dinner and make you happy" kind of eye contact + smile + greet.

Not even exaggerating. I really think they place all the best, most polite, most passionate about good service staff in Fish n Co Bugis Junction outlet. Cox this is not the first time i experience good service there!!! The past few times, out of which, twice i written compliment letter to the staff. One in my own name, another for my sister.

You see those magazines on our table? The staff name Francis offered it to us after we made our order. He even asked if these were okay, if not he'd bring others.

WHAT IS THIS. IT'S THE BEST SERVICE I EVER RECEIVED IN SINGAPORE

*tears rolling down cheeks*

Yeah i don't visit posh restaurants much, but restaurants like Fish n Co, catering for general public, i gotta say they really top ALL of the restaurants in their league so far, service wise. Food wise, it's a given lah. With all those yummy and wide range of sauce they give out upon request, and fresh ingredients used, they're on the right track for sure.

Okay food came really fast that's one more plus point!

Anyway, i just wanna do a shout out to Fish n Co!!! Thank you!!! Thank you for hiring these staff! They really really made our evening =DDD

Francis and his colleagues has been really helpful and attentive! He'd come over our table and ask if we need any refill/ top up for our sauces/ iced water. And also few minutes after all the dishes are served, he took the initiative to ask if the food was alright. I wanna tell him, DOESN'T MATTER, YOUR GOOD SERVICE ALREADY WON 60% OF OUR HEARTS!!!!!!

This is how much good service matters. If you haven't already seen THIS BLOG that i set up, to point out the best and the worst of customer services in Singapore, you should =) I also share other bloggers' experiences there. Check it out okay! So far, V8 Cafe at Bugis Junction tops the rest =DDDD FOR BEING THE WORST *serious face*

Nope, i'd never let this go until that fucked up restaurant close down and stop traumatizing people. There was an incident where the ladyboss threw a hard object at one of her customers. It's juicy, you should read it. HERE!

If you wrote about a valid experience reasonably on your own blog, you're welcome to share it (good or bad!) on this blog!!! Just email me! =D

Thursday, December 8, 2011

"Been visiting Lenas these few weeks made me feel alot better and I really feel like I have to blog about it to commend their service and food :)

The staff are efficient, they don't pretend not to see you. They take your orders politely, and don't show you face colour! If your food takes awhile to arrive, they will apologise when they send your food over (this happened when I was having pancakes today).

So generally, while their staff are not like super over enthusiastically friendly, they are polite and efficient, which is very good!

Also, there's this staff which I especially like to compliment!

If I'm not wrong, this lady is called Macon (stated on her name tag).

The first time I went to Lenas it was for the Bf's birthday lunch, and she was working there on that day. Although she didn't serve us exclusively, I think she was in charge of our bill for that meal.

The second time we went there, which was probably a few days after, she was working there as well, and she asked me whether I want to take the 15% student discount again, and when I offered to go back to my table and get the student card for her to see, she smiled at me and told me that it's okay, she remembered me from the last time (when I took the discount and showed her my student card). And so she just gave me the discount straightaway.

I mean, it's nice to be remembered ^^ But not only that, alot of staff working don't bother to give customers discounts if they don't ask for it! Plus she told me that she will give me the discount for the more expensive meal, when most places will discount your cheaper meal. She's super nice lor! If I'm not wrong she's probably a supervisor there or something :)

Anyway, in these past 2-3 weeks, I've been there about 4-5 times already. heheh.

And today I saw Macon working there again and she smiled at me in recognition even though she wasn't serving me.

Oh and during yesterday's meal of baked rice, we didn't even ask for the discount but they gave us the 15% discount without asking or anything. We checked the bill and we saw that they gave us a discount ^^ "

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

"Problems started when another good friend of mine decided to join us at the café shortly after. She wanted to order food but no waitress attended to her despite the fact that she had raised her hand up for full 5 minutes. I noticed that the 2 waitresses were at the bar talking and drinking water and one of them had actually seen my friend waving her hand at her but was totally ignored. At the end, my friend went to the counter and got herself the menu. After looking through, my friend was ready to order but again she was ignored. When one of the waitresses finally walked over to our table, we had a short conversation as narrated below:

Me: “Miss, are we paying a 10% Service Charge in this café?”

Waitress (gave a black face): “Ya. Why?”

Me: “So can you explain to me why is it that my friend has to get the menu at the counter herself when it has been observed that one of you actually saw her waving her hand but ignore her? Also, when she wanted to order, the same thing happens again?”

Waitress (shrugged and replied in an irritated tone): “SO do you want to order or not? We are busy down here now. Do you want to order NOW or not?”

Good Friend (in a neutral tone): “Where is your manager?”

Waitress: *Glared at my friend*

Me: “Go and get your manager here now.”

The manager (A Filipino lady) came to us, asking what had happened. After we gave our account, she apologized sincerely and told us that the 10% service charge would be waived off as an apology.

After everyone was done, we decided to head straight to the cashier for payment instead of having the bill sent to our table to make things easier for the tired staffs too. We made the wrong decision to do that because the ultimatum show of temper came from the lady in black at the cashier.

The conversation at the cashier as shown below:

Lady in black took out the receipt and placed it on the leather bill cover with a slap and throughout the whole time, she never look in our way at all.

Me: “Wait a minute. I’m sorry Miss, but I was told by your manager that the 10% service charge would be waived off?”

Lady in black glared at me and snatched the receipt away, punching at her cashier hard enough to crack the screen.

Me (Slightly irritated with her attitude): “Excuse me, are you the owner of this café?”

Lady in black ignored me for 5 seconds before replying the rudest reply I had ever heard in an F&B establishment.

Lady in black (Raising her voice by each second): “Since our service is not up to your standard here, DO NOT come and eat again. I do not welcome you here.”

All 4 of us were shocked at her reply to my simple question of whether she is the owner of this café!

Lady in black (gesturing madly at all of us): “I am only working here, but then again SO WHAT if I am the owner? WHAT do you intend to do?”

Me: “Look, it is a simple question. If you aren’t the owner, then you would have to check your rude attitude at customers because you are causing your boss to lose money. But if you are the owner, then you should know better than to snap at your customer for no apparent reason!”

Lady in black (still shouting): “YOU have caused me trouble because a few of my staff don’t want to work after the incident and I am already running on low manpower. You said that you were all in F&B industry before so all of you should know better than anyone else that this is how we deal with customers like you!”

Me: “That is your problem, aren’t ours. It is your issue that you have gotten an immature and untrained waitress on to floor service during dinner peak hours at downtown area. This would have happen with any other customers as well if your girl chose to snap at them instead.”

Lady in black repeatedly pointed at the bill to get my good friend to sign it while throwing verbal abuses at me; took it out of the cover and she did the next unexpected thing!

She took the pen-holder that was securing the bill to the cover and throw in my direction!

Luckily she threw downwards so the holder only hit me by a bit at the side. By then, the diners near the cashier were too shocked to continue their food. I grabbed the bill cover just in case she got the notion to throw that at me too.

Lady in black: “Shut up! Settle your bill and get out of here! Or I am going to call police!”

Me: “You should call the police. I am not the one shouting, hurling abuses, throwing things and holding on to someone’s credit card.”

Lady in black: (Put the card on the table) Take it and get out of this place! Do not BLOCK my way! There are still people waiting for payment!